It seemed to Mr. Chantrey as if an age had passed over him. As persons who are drowning see in one brief moment all the course of their past lives, with its most trivial circumstances, so he seemed to have looked into his own future, stretching before him in gloom and darkness, and foreseen a thousand miserable results springing from this fatal source. She was his wife, dearer to him than any other object in the world; but after she had repented and reformed, as surely she would repent and reform, she could never be to him again what she had been. There Was a faint gleam of moonlight stealing into the familiar room, and he could just distinguish her form lying on the white-covered sofa. With an overwhelming sense of wretchedness and bewilderment he fell upon his knees beside her, and burying his face in his hands, cried again, "Oh! my God!" CHAPTER VIII. HUSBAND AND WIFE How long he knelt there, Mr. Chantrey did not know. He felt cramped and stiff, for he did not stir from his first position; and he had uttered no other word of prayer. But at last Sophy moved and turned her head; and he lifted up his face at the sound. The moon was shining full into the room, and they could see one another, but not distinctly, as in daylight. She looked at him in dreamy silence for a few moments, and then she timidly stretched out her hand, and whispered, "David!" "My wife!" he answered, laying his own cold hand upon hers. For some few minutes neither of them spoke again. They gazed at one another as though some great gulf had opened between them, and neither of them could cross it. In the dim light they could only see the pallid, outline of each other's face, as though they had met in some strange, sad world. But presently he leaned over her, and kissed her. "Oh!" she cried, with a sudden loudness that rang through the quiet room, "you know all! You know how wicked I am. But you don't know how lonely and wretched I have been. I tried to break myself of it I did try to keep from it; but it was always there on the table when I sat down to my meals with Aunt Bolton; and I could always find comfort in it. Oh! help me! Don't cast me off; don't hate me. Help me." "I will help you," he answered, earnestly; but he could say no more. The mere sound of the words she spoke unnerved him. "And I have made you miserable just as you are coming home!" she went on. "I never meant to do that. But I was so restless, looking forward to to-morrow; and aunt's maid advised me to take a little, for fear I should be quite ill when you came. I should have been all right to-morrow; and I was so resolved never to touch it again, after you had come home. You are come back quite strong, are you? There is no more fear for you? Oh! I will conquer myself; I must conquer myself. If it had not always been in my sight, and the doctors had not ordered it, I should never have been so wicked. Do you forgive me? Do you think God will forgive me?" "Can you give it up?" he asked.